


91 - Guilt

by TerraCorrupt



Series: 100 List [7]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Caught, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father Figures, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Relationship Advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 10:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21117431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraCorrupt/pseuds/TerraCorrupt
Summary: Despite appearances, JT and Malcolm have been seeing each other secretly since the stakeout at Dr. Brown's place. Things escalated to intimacy and now each man needs a father-figure's help to keep their relationship afloat.





	91 - Guilt

“Gil.” Detective Tarmel called for his supervisor’s attention when he came into the squad room that morning. He’d left his lover’s apartment, sneaking out while the other remained asleep. His partner didn’t need to come into the office every day, and he hadn’t thought to awaken him, since he could work from home until there was something to pass along to the team. It’d been their third night together over a month. Usually after a case, but they’d seen each other several times in places where no one either knew would catch them. “You got a minute?” He lifted a hand to his mouth, rubbing his bottom lip hard with his thumb.

  
The lieutenant looked at the oldest member of his team. He nodded, the corners of his lips turning upward in a paternal smile. Gil Arroyo walked away from the patrolman he’d been speaking with and pointed at his office, expecting the conversation was going to be personal. “What’s up, man?” He stepped in behind his man, pointing at the long couch by the coffee table. The older man shut the office door behind himself, closing the blinds for a bigger sense of privacy. “Everything okay at home?” He didn’t know a lot about JT’s private life, other than he’d been in the dating pool for some time. It wasn’t easy to have a family in their line of work, but it was essential, considering the stresses they felt every day.

  
JT walked between the coffee table and the couch, setting his cup of coffee down first, before he dropped onto one part of the couch. “Uh… Yeah. It’s goin okay. I just need your advice.” He took a deep breath, his broad shoulders going back with the motion. “It’s about someone I’m dating.” Nervously, JT rubbed the back of his fingers against the cheek jutted out to one side while he figured out exactly how to frame the situation.

  
Gil sitting down in his chair at the head of the coffee table was the signal JT needed to go into his personal problems. “I’m gay,” JT started off, providing some context to the conversation. When he’d been in the service, don’t-ask-don’t-tell had very much been in effect regardless of what the government told the media. He watched a change come over Gil’s face, but found the expression was only shock. His jaw fell slack, an O shape forming on his lips while his eyebrows rose. “And I met a guy. We’ve been seein each other for a while.”

  
But the expression faded quickly into a smile. “Okay.” Gil nodded, clasping his hands together in front of him while he leaned forward. He gave JT his attention while he thought about the information. He never would have suspected that news, but it didn’t bother him. He’d long-since give up on the idea of who someone loved being something that was his business. It wasn’t for him to judge, so long as whomever it was still performed to the best of their abilities for him. “Is it serious? How long is awhile?” He was genuinely happy for JT finding someone but concerned that he had such a serious expression on his face.

  
JT pursed his lips, his brows knitting together over the bridge of his nose. “Yeah… I mean, I want it to be serious. But I’m afraid he’ll push me away.” Reflexively, he glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the room. He didn’t see the weird consultant who made people so uncomfortable. “It’s Bright. We’ve been… After we solved TT’s murder, I took him out to a bar before I took him home.” JT sighed again, trying not to look at the renewed shocked expression on Gil’s face. “I know, I know. I was the most against him joining us… But, once you get to know him, he’s… he’s soft and caring in a weird kind of way. It was just drinks that first night. A couple of dinners. We even went to a club and danced.”

  
JT snorted derisively about that escapade. “Never again, Gil. He can’t dance. But that night we went back to his place and…” His voice trailed off again, allowing the silence to intimate what happened between the two men. The younger detective held back that his lover had been a virgin that first night. He looked into Gil’s eyes, glad there was no judgement there now that the shock had worn off. He knew he’d been talking a lot and needed to get to the point. He hated giving up so much personal information about himself, even if it was to his trusted supervisor. “You know he sleeps with restraints? Big ones that chain him to the wall while he sleeps. Before we go to sleep, he has me lock him in them. It’s hard to cuddle someone when you’re laying on their leash.”

  
Gil listened quietly to JT pouring his heart out. He’d never have expected this man, whom he considered to be part of his family, to have actually started dating someone he’d disliked so much when they first met. He thought about the entire story. He hadn’t known about the restraints, thinking back to when he’d gone to the younger man’s loft and given him an evidence tape that had been hard earned. So, JT had been seeing Malcolm for a few months now, and the little spats were for show in front of himself and Dani. The lieutenant took a deep breath through his nose and sat back in his chair. He crossed his legs while thinking of what kind of advice JT needed. “What kind of advice do you want? It seems like you’ve already attracted him. I don’t know if I can help you.”

  
“I don’t want him to kick me out, Gil.” The heavy-set man shrugged expressively, shaking his head while glancing at the windows outside where the sun was shining. “He says he has night terrors, but he hasn’t had any the nights I’ve been over. How do I get him to let me in?” JT looked at Gil with a steady gaze now. He’d given over all the information there was to give, without declaring that he thought he loved the small, whack-job consultant.

  
“Did he say something?”

  
“No, it’s just—”

  
“Gil? Jason?” The door swung open, the younger man in question appearing with a folder in his hand.

  
“It’s JT,” the misnamed man spoke up again, as he always did Malcolm decided to be funny. “It’s been months now. When are you going to remember that?” They had to keep up appearances for everyone in the building, despite what Gil now already knew about the secretive couple.

  
“Not today,” Malcolm answered easily. “But I’ve got a profile, if we’re done arguing about initials.” He waved the folder triumphantly as if it carried the answer to everything they were looking for. “Come on. Dani’s waiting for us.” Blue eyes lingered a few extra seconds on JT, before he turned and made his way to the conference room they always set up in.

  
Both men stood up from their chairs. While JT sighed about the interaction, and not having gotten what he wanted from Gil, the older man closed the distance between them with a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll let you in. Just give him time. If you stay close enough, he’ll turn to you.” Giving the shoulder a final squeeze, Gil stepped away from his detective and went out of his office as if the conversation hadn’t been so personal it could destroy a career.

“What’ve you got, kid?” He asked on his way into the conference room. They had a killer to catch.

***

  
When all was said and done almost a week later, the killer was in custody. He was brought down by his own arrogance and narcissism, just as the profiler expected. Malcolm was pleased that they’d caught the guy and amused at the display between Dani and JT about who would do the paperwork while the other took the guy to the central lockup. JT got the paperwork. If Malcolm waited long enough, they could go back to his place together for a meal and to spend some time together.

  
He went along willingly with keeping their relationship a secret. It was as much for his own sake, as for JT’s. High society families like his still frowned on the degeneracy of homosexuality being openly practiced by its members. Not that it mattered much. No one truly loved the Surgeon’s son in that way. At least, not until recently with an officer took a little more of an interest in the unusual psychologist.

  
But how long that interest would last was incalculable. Malcolm sat in a chair in the conference room while the rest of the station did what they did on a normal shift. JT had seen him stick around; the two making eye-contact being enough to convey their desire for each other that night.

  
“Hey, kid. Good work today. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” Gil leaned in the door of the room, smiling paternally at the boy who had saved his life so long ago. The boy was almost like a son to him, someone he’d kept tabs on ever since they met. He’d mourned and questioned his mother putting him in a facility, but couldn’t, and didn’t, overstep those bounds.

  
“Uh… Yeah.” Malcolm stood up and went toward his friend. “I mean, I will. But I wanted to talk to you about something…” His eyes wandered across the room, falling on the back of the head of his lover. “Something personal. Your office?” He led the way into the next room, sitting in the same spot JT had. There was so much information, and no one he trusted more than Gil to have it. “I met someone. A male someone.” He started once Gil had taken his seat. “He’s spent the night in my bed three times. JT and I are dating. Secretly!” His eyes widened with the importance of that word. It implied that he didn’t want Gil telling anyone outside their team.

  
“Yeah? How’d that happen? He doesn’t like you.” Gil chuckled at the revelation. Of course, the information wasn’t new to him. But he’d seen how they interacted in public and pretended he didn’t know anything different. “It must be getting serious if you’re already together but want my advice about him.” The older man smirked while he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He wanted to break the ice with a joke, though the pensive look on the younger man’s face broke his heart. The indolent pose shifted again. He realized now that both men were serious about each other in the same way, but Malcolm was more afraid of losing JT than the other way around. “What’s going on, kid?”

  
“I… No one’s ever loved me like he has, Gil. I didn’t have friends until I met you and them and Edrisa.” Malcolm tilted his head toward the squad room where JT and Dani spent most of their time. “Most people can’t stand me for long.” The blue eyes fell to the coffee table, the whites tinging red with the building of tears within them. He drug his top teeth over the bottom lip, leaving definite marks in the soft skin. The noticeable tremor in his right hand returned, his fingers moving on their own for several seconds, until the joints locked. The hand was forced into immobilization.

  
“Start with how you two got together.” Gil prompted, directing Malcolm’s attention away from the sorry state he found himself in. The lieutenant had no idea Malcolm was so socially awkward and ostracized, but by now it was so ingrained in him that he thought of it in clinical terms that could be attached to someone else. “When did you start dating?”

  
“Uh…” Malcolm nodded, his hair sliding down in front of his face. “After Tatiana’s murder, and the arrest was made. Before he took me home, we went to a bar to celebrate.” His mind slowed down while he thought about how to give over the information in a cohesive way. “We had a few drinks together, and I listened to him talk. He acts like a real tough guy for you, Gil. He wants you to think of him that way. That he’s a strong man and can protect us all. In reality, when he lets his guard down, he’s a nice man with a large heart. He wants to have a family. But he’s gay, so adopting a child will be more difficult for him. Things are changing in our society though. So he’ll have his wish soon enough… Especially if I’m not in the picture.”

  
Malcolm swallowed nervously. He knew thorough background checks were done on potential adoptive parents, and one having the psychological problems he did would be a hurdle, even if they were controlled enough with medicine. The psychologist moved on from that thought quickly, not wanting to give Gil enough time to interrupt him with platitudes and reassurances. “We had another date at a bar, then he insisted on taking me to dinners once a week for the next month.” The times were imprecise, but it was unimportant. “A month ago, he took me to a club where they played loud music. We drank and danced together for hours.”

  
Malcolm bit his lip again, closing his blue eyes while he remembered the sensations that came from that first time their bodies had been so close. “I had too many.” Too many being enough to have trouble walking on his own. Had JT not had his arms fully around him he knew he’d fall to the ground or get taken advantage of by someone that wouldn’t be gentle. “JT’s hands were around me. He held me against his chest like I belonged to him.”

  
While Malcolm described the positioning of his partner’s hands, his own moved to where they had been. Gil watched the young man relive the time they spent dancing. It was a vivid memory for him, and seeing the pale hands cross his torso: one on his hip, the other on his shoulder. Malcolm described the way JT touched him and held him by his movements. The lieutenant listened to the words, keenly aware of how much of an impression the dating had left with him.

  
Malcolm’s head tilted to the side, his blue eyes opening and closing wistfully while he described the larger man’s lips on his vulnerable skin. “It felt… It felt like fire spreading through me. If I’d let go of him, he’d disappear, and I’d wake up in a nightmare of loneliness again. He had to take me home, so I invited him up for more of what he started. He knew my body better than I knew it.” Malcolm wrung his hands together while pointing at himself. “The way he—”

“I don’t need those details, kid.” Gil broke in sternly, clearing his throat.

  
“I… After, I insisted he stay the night. But he had to put my restraints on.” The younger man’s expression changed again, profound worry written across the furrowed brow and pursed lips. “I… I haven’t had the nightmares when he stays over, but what if I do, Gil? One night of me having a violent fit in bed and he’ll leave me, because I’ll assault him.” The voice rose in pitch and volume, though no one outside the office appeared to hear him. He quieted down at his friend’s intake of breath and lifting of his hands. “Please, Gil… I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  
“Bright…” Gil started soothingly. “Malcolm.” He laid a hand on the profiler’s knee, giving it a comforting squeeze. “You’re worried about something that may not even happen. Have you talked to him about it? I can’t have you both breaking up and making things awkward for the team.” He laid it out for Malcolm, indicating he believed both men were old enough to make their own decisions on how to handle their relationship, but he wanted it to be done properly. “Talk to him, kid. You might be surprised at what you find out.”

  
Malcolm nodded quietly. He sighed and leaned back on the couch he sat on. He had some things to think about now that he’d laid his soul bare to the only man he trusted that wouldn’t mock or judge him. “Thanks, Gil.” He smiled in response to Gil’s smile. He stood up, prompting the same from the lieutenant.

  
The pair hugged paternally as the door opened.

  
“Bright, you need a ride home?” JT leaned in the room, tilting his head at Malcolm. “Finished the report, so I can drop you on my way home.” They were still acting as if no one knew about their relationship.

  
“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Gil. See you next time.” Malcolm nodded at his friend and slid through the door. He walked purposefully out to his lover’s black vehicle. He waited patiently until the locks unclicked and he could slide into the sensible cloth seats of the vehicle. Gil had given him a lot of information to absorb. He would spend the ride thinking about it, and decide what he should do about keeping JT in his life.

  
A short time later, JT pulled up to the curb. The lateness of the hour allowed for them to move quickly and easily through the traffic that would normally have snarled their commute. He sighed when Malcolm got out of the car without leaning over for a kiss. He worried something had gone wrong, but that went by the wayside quickly as the younger man turned and leaned against the doorframe while the window rolled down for him. “What’s up?”

  
“Come inside? I owe you dinner, or coffee, or a drink.”

  
JT rolled the window back up and turned the car off. He hopped out of the car excitedly. With the vehicle locked, he almost ran around to Malcolm for a quick kiss from the short man. “Only if you let me carry you up.” He laughed at the idea and let his lover unlock and open the door. The chuckle continued when Malcolm turned and almost fought being picked up and forced to wrap his long legs around the detective’s waist. “Told you I’d carry you.” He pressed their lips together in a kiss while feeling his way up the long staircase.

  
The profiler gasped lightly. He grabbed JT’s back, fisting the fabric of his jacket. Malcolm moaned lightly into the pair of lips on his. The kissing produced the same fire as always. He wanted to have their clothes removed so their skin touched, and they could become one again. He couldn’t protest being carried as he wasn’t strong enough, physically to push JT off, but this allowed him to have a kiss. As they neared the top, Malcolm broke the kiss and turned his head to see how close they were to the top. Only a few more steps. He laughed at the lips landing on his throat. “Don’t trip when we get up there.”

  
“Yeah, yeah.” JT trundled up the last few steps but missed the last one and pitched forward. He landed on Malcolm and groaned in pain. He pushed himself back onto his hands and knees. JT searched his lover’s eyes for signs that he’d seriously injured him. “You okay, man?” At the nod, he turned his head and pressed his lips below the pale ear. It elicited a moan that caused his body to respond ardently.

  
A loud crash of a ceramic mug smashing on the floor followed by a female shriek of Malcom’s name drew the attention of the men.

  
“Mother?! What are you doing here?”


End file.
